Job Description

Job Title: Kibbutzik

Salary: 240NIS per month (approx. $60)

Experience Needed: None

Start Date: Immediately

Job Responsibilities:

Milk Man - Rise at 5:30 a.m. First, you must have no allergies to alfalfa, wheat, or pellets because you start your day filling and emptying enough food to feed all the goats. Second, check the perimeter of the makeshift goat pens for any damage, holes, or repairs needed. Third, check for new born goats, goats that are stuck, dead goats, or anything else suspicious. Fourth, open pen #3 to milk first round of female goats. Herd the females up the ramp and into their holding cells. Lock their head into place and test each utter by hand to check for proper milk flow, no blood, or infection. Turn on the suck-pump and hook the girls up. Now, sit back and watch the milk flow monitoring proper flowage. As the utter drains, help squeeze out any precious last drops (after all, every penny counts) and turn off the suck-pump. Continue on down the line until each goat has been milked. Once each goat is milked, unlock their head, open the gate and watch them trample each other down the ramp and back into their pen. Repeat these steps until all female goats are empty. Fifth, spray down and clean all equipment, half-ass. Sixth, time for breakfast. This job may also involve a second milking in the evenings. A few times a week

After breakfast you may be called to “Goat Wrangler” or off the Yogurt Land.

Goat Wrangler – Shuffle all the separated goat pens around like a rubrics cube in order to set up new female and male partners, and to separate the females who are expected mothers. Number one responsibility, run around, jumping, waving your arms, clapping your hands, and scream ya-la, ya-la, ya-la, like a caged monkey being mocked by an entire elementary class on a field trip at the zoo. Something to keep in mind, you may be asked to put down the clip board and tackle a few goats that will be running away from you, jumping, kicking, screaming, and dodging each of your fancy counter moves so you can read the number on the ear tag, “Yep, she’s on the list, put her in this pen.”

Yogurt Maid – Suit up in rubber boats, latex gloves, a white lab coat, and hair net. Mix liter after liter of plain goat yogurt with various fruit mixes. Label hundreds of plastic bottles with the appropriate flavor. Using a soup ladle, fill pitch after pitcher with yogurt and hand pour into each bottle. Cap the bottle, but make sure you have the right color cap. Slap an expiration sticker on the bottle, fill up as many containers as possible and then move them to the storage fridge. Spray wash ever bucket, pitcher, ladle, mixer, and counter top after each bucket of yogurt is empty. Repeat all these steps until the boss say’s you’re done. If you are the unlucky new guy, you may be asked to empty the hundreds of broken bottles, expired bottles, or moldy cheese packets that were sent back by opening each item, dumping it into one big bucket and washing out the plastic.

I’ve never seen anything like this when I searched through thousands of jobs on Careerbuilder.com, CraigsList, LinkedIn, Jobing, Monster, etc. Sign me up, well I actually I guess Penny the kibbutz coordinator signed me.

Officially, I am now a Milk Man by morning, and Goat Wrangler or Yogurt Maid by late morning/afternoon. Today was the first day on the job and it was quite interesting. Lots of mindless information will become routine with practice. No college degrees required, no prior experience needed, no letter of recommendation or references. Just a pair of work boots, some crummy used clothes picked from a pile of shirts and pants left behind from past kibbutznik’s, and a willingness to do what you’re told.

My boss is Salomon. An American from northern Los Angeles County who relocated to Israel 17 years ago and has lived on Kibbutz Lotan from the beginning. He seems like a good guy. He gave me the tour of the grounds, showed me who’s who in goat land, who is fed what mixture of food, and how the milking all goes down. I jumped right into it, squeezing milk out an utter for the first time in my life. Boy, what a thrilling experience. The feeding and milking lasted about three and a half hours. After breakfast Salomon asked me to join him back at the goats to separate some of the females, and rearrange some of the pens. I thought I could be one step ahead and grab the clipboard containing the list of females we needed to find and separate. I wasn’t too sure about wrestling goats. We had 14 females to find and after the first 7, Salomon said, “why dont you give it a try now.” Oh of course. It was actually kind of fun and tested your reaction time. I can’t quite say mine were cat-like, but it wasn’t half bad. Wrangling the goats took about an hour. I went home to change into clean clothes and I was off to yogurt land.

After a short walk to the dairy, I suited up in my boots, lab coat, gloves, and hair net (I hardly have any hair, but whatever). There are 3 other volunteers I work with and they were all in yogurt land this morning. Julia from Austria, Josh from Miami, and Ru from Japan. I paired up with Ru and he showed my the ropes. Pretty much all I did was capped off a few hundred bottles of yogurt, stuck an expiration label on it, and moved the bottles to the storage fridge, for 4 hours. Toward the end of the day I mixed a few yogurts and then of course was asked to dump out all the old, moldy, broken bottles that were sent back and rise out all the plastic. Loads of curdled goat milk and goat cheese. I did sample a few flavors, not of the old stuff I was throwing out, and they were surprisingly tasty. I have not tried goat yogurt before. I recommend it now. We make strawberry, coconut, pineapple, peach, sesame seed, date, and few others.

It was a very interesting day learning all the responsibilities of the job. I’m not sure how accepted or if this experience will qualify me for any jobs that I have looked at in the past, but I guess it will have to work.

Life on the kibbutz hasn’t blown me away yet with excitement. It is pretty slow going and hot. After work I took another dip in the pool, which is beautiful. The water temperature is perfect, the pool is huge, and it’s a little green oasis. I am still not sure how thrilled I am to be here. I am still taking in the alternative lifestyle and adjusting to the job, the people, and the atmosphere. I don’t have any expectations as to whether or not I will fall in love with the Kibbutz life, of if I will decided to move on. I mean after all, people have been here for years, there must be something worth staying around for. Beyond the residents, whom I have only met a few briefly in passings, the volunteers are a random bunch of young adults, 19-27. Some of the countries represented are: US, Germany, Austria, England, Mexico, Holland, Canada and there are a couple more, I just haven’t caught them yet.

It has been a pleasant experience realizing material items do not have a value here. The people are honest, upfront, and real. They are here because they have decided to travel, willingly offer there work ethic to support people who are living a much different lifestyle. More different then anything I have ever been involved with. No one is higher on the totem pole then the other. I’ve had the opportunity to visit with complete foreign strangers, move into a shared bedroom with random travelers, and sit around a table with people who, although different cultures and backgrounds may present conflict, have come together and left everything behind to support a community who’s foundation is held together by equality. This is the reason why I made to decision to trek to Israel and wait for 3 weeks before I was placed. Even if I am having different realizations now then I imagined in the beginning, I know this experience will still have a more powerful influence on my character, more then any job, any school, or any material item I may want.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the amount of time I have had to self reflect. I’m not sure if I would have the time or place at home to escape from everything and truly reflect on my character and what motivates me to succeed, whether it be financially or emotionally. It's easy to be consumed in your everyday routine and loose track of what is truly meaningful. I know I was struggling with that before I left. In a conversation I had, we were discussing how people escaped to handle different situations in life. Some of us resort to food, friends or family, alcohol or drugs, art, reading, yoga, climbing a hill side to sit atop and think, or traveling. Some people have a hard time finding their retreat. If you have, that is wonderful and I encourage you to find alternatives sources that will challenge your prior comfort zones. If you are more timid, I highly recommend you just throw yourself out there, just try something new, anything. Something that will allow you to completely escape your thoughts, comfort zones, and familiarities. I believe this will allow you to truly understand what is important to you, which I also believe a lot people, including myself, are unable to accomplish.

I dunno, I’m having trouble trying to convey my ultimate point, and at this point just rambling, but I was trying to express my opinion about the importance of truly finding your character, your motivation, your morals. I am just now am beginning to realize a few of mine and it has been an incredible feeling. I have realized quite a bit about myself, my values, and who the person inside my heart wants to be towards the people I value the most, my family and friends. It’s just a great feeling to have and I am excited to share it and I want other people to share the same excitement so I’m trying to explain what I have done in hopes that maybe other people will give it a shot and have the same success, emotionally, that I have had thus far.

Well, I’m exhausted, maybe you could tell. I will keep you posted on how life as a kibbutnik/milk man/goat wrangler/yogurt maid goes. Stay tuned…